Does your child find public school math homework too easy?

[Anonymous]

I've been curious about the current math curriculum for elementary school kids. DD is still young, at pre-K, but I picked up a couple od Grade 1 textbooks for a nephew from a bookstore and DD and I just went through for fun. She could answer the questions verbally (those which didn't require writing), and I'm now wondering if the standard of math education in elementary has really dropped so low, that even a pre-K kid can attempt these questions....

[Anonymous]

Yes, it has dropped so low, and you will need to supplement in some way.

Note that children need consolidation and problems to develop critical thinking BEFORE acceleration. Some parents don't understand this. For each topic, there are easy and hard questions. You will find that it's critical for your child to master the hard questions (the word problems, the multi-step problems, the twisty brain-teasers) before moving on to another topic. This is where the school system usually doesn't help at all, since there are "advanced" math classes, but most of them only teach the next batch of topics, instead of digging deeper into what the kids already know, or think they know.

[Anonymous]

Those books from the bookstore are way easier than the MoCo curriculum at the relevant grade level. And if your kid really is smart she will test into the gifted program in grade 2 and she will be eligible for a different curriculum at a different school.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Not just math. My son is learning about the four seasons in first grade science. Sometimes I think about homeschooling.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't say "too easy" because I never had a specific expectation for how difficult school should be, but so far my kids have found their schoolwork to be mostly easy. I don't consider this a problem, and tend to think it is good or at worst simply a neutral fact.

[Anonymous]

My 1st grader in DCPS is really bored in math. It's a problem.

[Anonymous]

I have K and 2nd grade boys in FCPS. Both are advanced in math. 2nd grader will most likely be attending the AAP center in 3rd grade where everyone in his AAP center will also be advanced in math. He is currently about 1-2 grades ahead but so will everyone else who is in AAP in 3rd grade. Kids do dreambox at school and home and you can see their progress. 2nd grader is doing multiplication and K son is working on mostly finished with 1st grade math.

1st grade math isn't all that different from what my kids were doing in pre-K and K but they do a lot with those additions and subtractions. Curriculum includes grouping and various strategies. My kids could probably do the same when they were 4-5 years but so could many other children.

[Anonymous]

Talk to high school parents who thought the way you did with their bright kids were little. We are laughing at ourselves while listening to you echo our age-old worries. Relax. Bright kids are supposed to find elementary school math easy. Their brains still have to be fully developed before they tackle real math (which by the way, they may also find easy).

Oh, and they are not doing the math they are doing in elementary school because it is something they don't "know" yet - - they are building neural pathways to make this easy stuff fast and automatic. There is more going in the classroom than you understand.

[Anonymous]

Extremely easy and boring. MCPS second grade.

[Anonymous]

Kindergarten. Horribly easy.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but in HS last year he found AP BC Calculus to be very easy. Math is his thing.

[Anonymous]

In our experience, reading is the priority until grade 3, then math takes priority. It is read, read, read in k-2.

[Anonymous]

Yes 3rd grade but I take care of that by assigning him problems out of a workbook that I bought off Amazon.

[Anonymous]

^ There's no reason to go as slow as they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, but in HS last year he found AP BC Calculus to be very easy. Math is his thing.

did you notice that this is an ELEMENTARY school forum?